Posted on 02/02/2003 11:44:48 AM PST by SJackson
How extreme must an ‘extremist’ be before the BBC, CBC, New York Times, London Times and NPR calls him a ‘terrorist’?
Would ‘terrorists’ remain ‘extremists’ or ‘militants’ if they blew up the buildings in which these media giants house themselves - like the World Trade Center? Or the Pentagon?
We in America clearly understood that, when 15 Saudis and four Egyptians forced airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, these were terrorists - not militants, not extremists.
Yet, for Arab Muslims in Gaza, Beirut, Damascus, and Cairo who danced in the streets in hysterical delight, they were not terrorists, not extremists, nor militants - to them, they were shahids (martyrs).
Clearly, much of the media have become fellow travelers and apologists for terrorists. Somehow, hideous acts of carnage are excused away as merely justifiable murder, because "the murderers have been driven by frustration." What exactly is this frustration that the media considers mitigating circumstances?
Was it being thwarted when the Arab Muslims set about to occupy Israel and kill every Jew? Was it the numerous wars launched against the Jewish State, wherein the gamble to occupy cost the would-be invaders land? Was the media sympathetic to the poor Arabs, because they were humiliated on the field of battle by a small nation of Jews?
The media have worked diligently to twist history and actual events into a rationale that not only excuses the Arabs for making war, but supports their actions. Would that not make the media not only observers, but combatants - militants, extremists and, finally, terrorist supporters or - just plain terrorists, who put the guns in the hands of other people? Are not terrorists captured, shot dead, blown up? Would the media object to being targeted as are those who shoot infants through sniper rifles equipped with telescopic sights?
Would members of the media object to being waylaid on the road and being machine-gunned or fire-bombed, or blown-up by a road-side bomb place there by a terrorist (or would the members of the media call them ‘militants’)?
Since propaganda is a tool of war, has the media enlisted itself to become a combat division of global terrorist organizations?
Surely, it is more than just journalistic semantics to use words like "militants" or "extremists" to describe hideous crimes. What it is can only be defined as an effort to both protect terrorists and, through word play, excuse their actions. I submit that both the killers and their protectors are de facto co-conspirators who deserve equal treatment. The offending members of the media have chosen to make themselves party to crimes against humanity, using the cover of ‘just being professional observers’ when, in fact, they are participants. They are no longer objective observers when they take up the causes of terrorists and assist their causes through the persuasion of the media. They persuade the public that the killing and the maiming was done for a good cause - that the terrorists are not to be faulted, but rather understood, even pitied. They create a barrier of defense so the governments of nations will not go against the prevailing sense of their citizens, who have been persuaded by the media. Thus, of their own choice, they have become a propaganda mechanism for violent political movements who use terror to obtain power and control.
I believe that journalists and their corporations, who set the informational policy are de facto and de jure terrorists when they defend terrorism. When they use words like ‘militant’ or ‘extremist’ in lieu of the word ‘terrorists’, they have chosen to become part of that terrorist organization. Should they be treated as ‘terrorist provocateurs’, either in the field or in their headquarters by their victims, it would not be surprising.
They could not use a ‘Patty Hearst’ defense of "I was captured and had to go along." These are sophisticated, well-informed organizations, who can make intelligent decisions and cannot claim coercion.
There are, of course, honest, ethical and moral journalists out there, who similarly have corporations behind them that do not demand biased reportage. For example, compare Fox News with CNN and BBC, or the Chicago Sun-Times with the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times or the New York Times. One reports the news, while the others make the news, and then offer misleading jingles like "All the news that’s fit to print." NPR has become known to many as National Palestine Radio by usually interviewing pro-Palestinian academics, along with weak Israeli Leftists pretending balance. CNN has modestly improved as their ratings fell against Fox News, which reported on terror in a straight, unadulterated fashion. The Chicago Tribune continues to be an apologist for Arab Palestinian terrorists, while explaining that their terrorism is somehow the fault of Israel.
The media has exposed itself to criticism as it has made itself part of the world of "rejectors without a cause." The Arabs have become the darlings of the media, in the name of Islam. Perhaps it is merely fear that the Islamists will blow up their offices or assassinate their journalists - as they have. If fear is their motivation, I cannot help but wonder when the victims of terrorism will decide to use the same form of media persuasion. At that poiny, who will then be the ‘militant’ and who the ‘terrorist’?
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